1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices for supporting and displaying merchandise and, more particularly, to a device that can be selectively collapsed and placed in a display state simply upon moving two facing walls thereon towards and away from each other and to a method for assembling the device.
2. Background Art
Prefabricated display stands are frequently employed in retail establishments to support and display merchandise. It is known to construct stands from cardboard to make them light in weight and reduce manufacturing costs. It is also known to make cardboard display stands collapsible to reduce their size for compact storage and ease of transportation.
Designers of prior art display stands have striven to simplify the transition from collapsed to display states without compromising the integrity of the stand. However, the prior art structures have generally fallen short of achieving these objectives.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,396, to Patterson, a knockdown, multiple shelf display rack is shown that is constructed from numerous, separate elements. One has to place and maintain uprights and shelves together and while doing the latter, put a surrounding sleeve in place. This is time consuming, may require more than one individual to effect assembly and requires a large number of parts, the absence of any one of which may render the structure inoperable.
It is also known to construct cardboard stands from a single blank, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,775, to Fortunato. In Fortunato, a fairly intricate folding operation is required to interconnect elements to maintain the structure in its display state. The assembly process is both time consuming and complicated as one must fold each individual element and effect connection between the mating elements through a predetermined sequence of steps.
The present invention is specifically directed to overcoming the above enumerated problems in a novel and simple manner.